Alone in Grief
by GalaxyPurple
Summary: Ivan has died and Alfred is trying to cope. He's not doing so well. RusAme


It was snowing. It feels like it snows a lot these days. Everyday it's just white, bland, and cold. Despite that I make the same trip to the same place to do the same thing. I take the usual path through the powdery snow everyday, sometimes twice, or on particularly painful days, three times. I just have to do it. It feels like every time I leave that place I leave a piece of myself stuck in the cold hard ground. So I keep coming back. Maybe one of these times I'll finally wake up and accept it, but right now I can't. I know it's not healthy and I know I'm not coping with this in a good way, but I can't stop. I can't stop visiting his grave.

I think sometimes when I wake up in the morning that it was all fake. That when I open my eyes he will be there looking down at me with a gentle smile and tell me good morning. He'll give me a quick kiss and I'll love it even if I think his morning breath is kinda gross. But it will have all been a lie created from my mind to torture me in my dreams. That he is still with me and we can still go out and have lunch together and act like it's our first date all over again, and every time I will fall even more in love. But... when I open my eyes it's still the same. The world is still gray and monotone, and the spot next to me is still cold and unbearably empty. I can't see his smile, I can't even remember his kinda gross morning breath. Sometimes I don't even wake up in our bed because it's just too painful to sleep where he isn't. Where he can't.

Then, I start to remember all of our firsts together. I remember how he was really bad at flirting and how on our first date to the movie theater he was too nervous to put his arm around me so I moved his arm for him. It was the first time we sat together like that and just watched in complete content. I remember the first time we cooked together, and we ended up getting in a fight over what kind of food we were going to make. We ended up having to order out because we threw food at each other and ruined the kitchen. I remember the first time we kissed. We had just had our second date at some fancy place that I could care less about but I was just so happy to be with him. That was all that mattered. I knew he was my one and only in that moment when he leaned down and finally, after days of awkward staring, he kissed me.

But now... All of those are over shadowed by new first things. I remember the first time I went to a movie without him and how I left crying because I realized that he would never be able to watch it or hold me like that again. I remember the first time I cooked in our kitchen alone and how I didn't eat that night because I threw the pan off the stove and almost lit the house on fire. I had realized that I would never be able to taste his cooking or even have a fight with him ever again. I remember the first time I sat alone thinking about how I would never be able to feel his lips on mine. I would never be able feel him. He was gone forever and I hated these new firsts.

The only thing I can do is walk through the snow and weave through the cold graves until I find his. I can't even feel the cold anymore. I've become numb because he died and took the life and color of my world with him. He left me with this gray monotone. The only thing that still shines with color are the sunflowers that I bring with me when the old ones have died. They were his favorite. He said they reminded him of the sun, that they reminded him of his dream to live somewhere warm one day. So they're bright. Almost unbearably so. The yellow is almost blinding on the backdrops of the gray and black of the world around me. I leave them. I leave them on his grave in a silent prayer that wherever he is he is warm and surrounded by color. I pray that he did find his Heaven.

Now I stand here in front of his grave with sunflowers in hand and the only thing I can think about is how his eyes looked. He had the most beautiful eyes. They were an odd color, a petrifying but gentle violet. I just stand here thinking about how his eyes used to be and how when he died they were so dull. Those were not his eyes. They were not the same beautiful and gentle violet they used to be. No, they were dull, so dull they looked black and I knew then that he was gone.

But I still stand here. I know he is gone but I still try to find him. So I stand here everyday looking down at his grave. I was shielded from the snow by a tree, but the shadow it left over me was not as dark as I hopped it was. I could still see the tear drops left in the snow. I could still see his grave, impersonal and distant.

I smile faintly. It felt hollow. Faked. But I still smiled and dusted off some of the snow from the headstone. I could read it now. Though I didn't really need too. I knew what it said. Now matter how many times I hope it says something different it still says it. Ivan Braginsky is still etched into the stone.

Some snow from the tree over head slipped from a branch. I felt it land on me but still I could not feel it's biting chill. It brought a smile to my face though as I looked up at the sky past the tree. "Heh... You got me again..." Some of the snow fell off of my shoulders and I brought my left hand up to reach for the sky. Small rays of sunlight passing through the leaves that still clung to the slowly baring branches reflected off of the golden ring, still on my finger after all this time.


End file.
